In this section, please note any traumatic events that have affected your life, under the time period in which they happened. If something went on over several years, just note roughly when it started and ended.
Traumatic events are usually highly emotional experiences that, at the time, we took to mean we were under threat. They also tend to be experiences we felt we couldn't escape from.
Sometimes that's literal: there was no way out, as with violent abuse, being trapped, or being in a war zone. Just as often, it's about how we saw the situation. We felt we couldn't control it or leave it because the consequences seemed too frightening. Losing a job, a threat to an important relationship, or being abandoned by a parent can affect us just as deeply as being trapped in a car after an accident. They're real in a different way.
Trauma doesn't only come from single events. It can also build up over time through our closest relationships, with parents, step-parents, brothers and sisters, partners or ex-partners. Ongoing criticism, conflict, neglect, feeling unsafe, or never feeling good enough at home or in a relationship can affect us as deeply as any one event. If anything like this applies to you, please include it, even if it doesn't feel "big enough" to count.
We don't have to go through these experiences ourselves for them to affect us. We might witness something happen around us. We might also hear about it from someone else, and our imagination fills in the gaps as if we'd been there. This can also happen through the news, television, film or social media. People with high levels of empathy are especially affected in this way.
Whether an experience gets stored as traumatic also depends on what we call your "emotional landscape" at the time. Put simply, this is the state your brain was in when the event happened. It's shaped by your past and current experiences, your temperament, and how sensitive or vulnerable you were to stress in your life at that point.
Because of all this, the memory gets stored in the brain's fight-or-flight centre, the amygdala. That's why remembering the event, or going through something similar, can set off a strong emotional response. It can feel as though you're living through the original experience all over again.